Trius Chops IPO Price, Offers More Shares

In a page taken from the discount retailing playbook, San Diego’s Trius Therapeutics slashed the proposed price of its pending IPO by roughly 60 percent and increased the number of shares it is offering by 67 percent.

Trius now plans to offer at least 10 million shares at $5 apiece, after initially planning to sell six million shares at a price range between $12 and $14 a share, according to Renaissance Capital, which tracks IPOs. The biotech, which was founded in 2004, plans to use the proceeds to complete late-stage clinical trials of its antibiotic, torezolid phosphate.

As Luke reported last year, the company’s lead antibiotic candidate is from the same class of compounds as Pfizer’s linezolid (Zyvox), which represents a billion-dollar-plus market. Trius, which says it has a technology platform for creating a class of similar molecules, says its torezolid phosphate represents an improved alternative, a pill that can be taken at a lower dose, over a shorter period of time, and be given once a day instead of twice.

Trius has raised more than $68 million in venture funding from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Sofinnova Venture Partners, InterWest Partners, Versant Ventures, and Prism Venture Partners, according to VentureWire. The venture investors do not appear to be selling shares in the initial offering.